


Spark

by allovernow



Category: Breaking Bad, Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hallucifer, Post-El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Season/Series 07, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allovernow/pseuds/allovernow
Summary: One gas station, two devils, and the men they haunt.
Relationships: Jesse Pinkman & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Spark

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me, just taking advantage of SPN's notorious timeline-woolliness to have post-Hell Sam and post-compound Jesse run into each other.

Ed lets him out after like eight hours on the road, or maybe it’s two days or ten minutes. After the compound, and the basement room where he waited for Ed to get all his new-fake-life shit together, Jesse’s sense of time is all out of whack. Waking up still freaks him out every time. He keeps expecting to hear a tarp flapping above him, to realise that none of it happened—Mr White never came back, he never got out of ABQ—and he’s back there, chained in a hole in the ground. When he closes his eyes, prison bars flash behind his eyelids.

Part of him is still maybe 50% sure it’s all a dream. It would be stupid, wouldn’t it, to think that things could change? That he could get out? And Jesse’s never exactly been in the gifted program. 

There’s a little voice in the back of his head that keeps pointing that out. Sounds kind of like Mr White—the old Mr White, the one who used to call him an idiot and a useless junkie and shit, not the one who gunned down Jack’s crew, and not the one who hissed, _I could have saved her, but I didn’t_ in Jesse’s face and watched him break like it was nothing.

All those Mr Whites are dead, but it feels unreal. The old bastard spent years dying, and Jesse’s brain still can’t accept that he’s actually gone. 

“Restroom’s that way.” Ed’s voice brings him back to reality, and he jerks his head toward the far corner of the building. “Stay away from the front. Security cameras.” With that, he’s out of sight, probably headed to go get snacks or something.

Jesse takes a piss, splashes cold water on his face—which feels fucking amazing after the stuffy heat of the hidden compartment—and leans against the gas station wall, half-hidden in shadows, to light up a smoke. He probably should’ve taken the opportunity to quit smoking, after not being able to just go buy a pack for six months, but it isn’t like he has any other vices left. And after the way Todd used to dole them out to him occasionally, like he was giving a treat to a dog that had learned a new trick, having his own and being able to choose when he smokes them makes him feel a little more human.

He closes his eyes, lets his head rest against the wall and exhales a plume of smoke. 

Shit, he should’ve asked Ed to get him a soda or something. The water supply in his compartment is getting pretty stale. But he’s still readjusting to the idea that he can just _ask_ for stuff and not get a smack in the face for it.

At least out here there’s air that doesn’t smell like gasoline or his own farts. The cold makes everything feel cleaner, somehow, and the stars are really clear—like in the desert back home, only they seem like they’re further away.

He catches himself. Gotta stop thinking of it like that. _Home_ ’s always been kind of a struggle, but it’s weirdly hard to break the habit.

The growl of an engine breaks in on his thoughts. Low and bassy, like one of those big-ass Stone Age muscle cars Todd was into, and even though Jesse can still feel the asshole choking under his hands when he shuts his eyes, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

The noise cuts out. There’s a door slam, a sound of muffled voices. Jesse can’t make out what they’re saying, but he can tell it isn’t Todd’s creepy, too-calm drawl, and he lets out a shuddery breath, suddenly aware that his shoulders are up around his ears.

In and out, count to ten, like they taught him in rehab. It doesn’t help. Jesus, how long does Ed gotta take in there?

The sound of another door slamming cuts the silence, and a couple seconds later somebody skitters around the side of the building. Jesse squints through the dark, the stranger barely illuminated by the light leaking from the forecourt.

The dude is like ten feet tall and jacked, but his body language is all gangle-limbed nervousness, jittery and unsettled as a crane fly around a window. 

Oh, and he’s talking to himself.

“No,” he says, into the darkness. “No, you’re not.” And he makes this weird gesture, jamming the end of his thumb into the heel of his other hand.

Instinct has Jesse pressing himself back into the shadows, cupping his hand around the cherry of his cigarette to keep it from giving him away in the gloom. This dude really doesn’t look like a fed, with the floppy hair and the, like, lumberjack shirt he’s wearing, but that doesn’t mean Jesse should be showing his face. Plus, the guy might be insane or something.

Funny thing, though: Jesse’s known a few paranoid tweakers in his time, but this dude doesn’t sound like any of them. Not so much chew-your-face-off twitchy as… tired.

As if to prove his point, the stranger sighs and drags a hand down his face. “Seriously,” he says, “if you were real, even you’d get sick of the sound of your own voice.” 

Yeah, Jesse recognises that tone of voice. It’s when you’re right at the end of your patience, but you also know losing it is only gonna make things worse, and you bitch and whine and then you suffer through it because it’s the only option you’ve got.

Jesse _so_ shouldn’t get involved. He should stay here in the shadows and wait for whoever was in the car with crazy-dude to come get him, and be on his merry anonymous way.

But he’s never been much good at doing what he should, so instead he steps out from the shadow of the wall and says, “You okay?”

The dude starts so hard Jesse jumps back, too. Then he stares.

For a second, Jesse assumes it’s because of the scars. He’s been trying not to think about them too much, avoiding mirrors when he can, because it’s freaky as fuck to look in the glass with a picture of his old self still in his head and see a cut-up, hollow-eyed stranger gazing back at him. Maybe one day he’ll get to the point where they don’t bother him, where they’re just evidence that he survived, or some kumbaya therapy shit like that, but not today. Not any day soon.

There’s no disgust on the guy’s face, though. It’s more like Jesse is a puzzle he’s trying to figure out.

After a second, the guy kind of grimaces, almost a flinch, and says, “Are you really here?”

Jesse almost laughs. “Uh, yeah, dude. Last time I checked.”

“Okay.” The guy says that more to himself than to Jesse, then looks him in the eyes. “I’m fine. Sorry if I startled you.” He still looks wound up tight, though, the tension in every line of his body making Jesse’s shoulders start to cramp in sympathy. 

Jesse shrugs. “’S cool.” He fumbles in his pocket, holds out the pack. “Smoke?”

“No. Thanks.” The guy hesitates, worrying at that same spot on his palm. “Actually—”

“Knock yourself out.” 

Jesse proffers the pack again. This time the guy takes one, turning it between his fingers like he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

“Light?”

“Oh. Sure.” 

The guy takes his Zippo, sparks up and inhales enough to light the cigarette, the lit end flaring red in the darkness. The flame lights up his strong jaw and the kind of feline slant of his eyes, and Jesse may not know the guy but he knows that look on his face. It’s the same haunted, hollow-eyed one he keeps seeing in the mirror.

The guy grimaces and swallows as he hands back the lighter, like he isn’t used to the taste. He stares down at the cigarette in his hand for a second, still and thoughtful, like he’s meditating or some shit.

Then he presses the lit end against his palm.

Jesse moves without thinking, snatching the cigarette from the dude’s hand and grinding it out under his heel. “Jesus!”

“Uh, not exactly.” The guy’s mouth quirks mirthlessly. He doesn’t look like he’s in pain, though. He doesn’t even wince. Just that same exhausted stillness.

Jesse shakes his head. “What the fuck, man?”

“Sorry.” He seems to gather himself, and this time, when he looks up and meets Jesse’s eyes, there’s something painfully earnest in his expression. “Really. I didn’t mean to scare you. Just… had to be sure.”

“O… kay.” 

This is probably proof that the dude is batshit crazy, but part of Jesse thinks he gets it. The same part that hears Mr White’s voice when it’s quiet and sees prison bars against the sky when he closes his eyes. 

He swallows. Knows he shouldn’t ask. “So, who were you talking to back there?”

Another one of those mirthless smiles. “Would you believe me if I said it was the Devil?”

For some bizarre fucking reason, Jesse feels a laugh break out of him. “Dunno if I’d believe you, but uh, I guess I’d say I knew a guy like that too.”

The guy shakes his head. “I really hope not.”

Before Jesse can even start thinking what to say to that, another voice hollers from around the front of the gas station. “Sammy! Sammy, where the hell—?”

The guy ducks his head in apology. “I should go.” He hesitates. “Thanks.”

Jesse doesn’t get the chance to ask what for, either. The guy disappears around the corner of the building in a couple of strides, and then Ed’s approaching from the other direction, and hallefuckinglujah, it’s time to get back in his box and hit the road.

Curled up in the darkness, Jesse puzzles over the stranger—Sammy—and his devil, and his sad, sad smiles. 

He’s gotta do something to keep Mr White’s voice out of his head, right?

And when it doesn’t work, when the whispers get too loud to ignore, Jesse reaches into his pocket and finds his lighter. The tiny flame hurts his eyes in the darkness. Jesse watches it dance, and holds his hand so close to the fire it almost burns.


End file.
